Unless your organization watches its Facebook stats carefully, you may not have realized Facebook has become increasingly less accommodating to brands and companies over the course of the platform’s recent updates.  Some notable business owners, like billionaire Dallas Maverick’s owner Mark Cuban, have even spoken out against Facebook’s latest changes.

For example, in late 2012 TechCrunch noticed that posts made by brand pages were only being displayed to a tiny fraction of a page’s following, and were being hidden from the rest.  Facebook has been restricting how many of a page’s followers see a given post, a statistic known as “Reach,” for several years now.  However TechCrunch found that in late 2012 Facebook made changes to the newsfeed that caused the reach for brands to drop as much as 40% compared to what it was earlier in the year.

Posts for the average Facebook brand page are now being seen by less than 10% of their audience!  For example, if you spent time, money and effort to build your Facebook following to 4,000 people, that means now each post you make is going to be seen by less than 400 of them.

Facebook has a solution for this though…you can pay them money and then they will show your post to more people.  That doesn’t quite seem ethical though, does it?  First you spend money to build your following on Facebook, and then you spend even more money to reach the following you worked so hard to build?

It’s no wonder so many business owners, like Cuban, are upset and considering leaving the platform.  So, is it time for you to close your Facebook page?  Here are three important things to consider:

1. Does your business model allow for recurring purchases?  There is a rule in marketing and sales that says it’s always cheaper to sell more to an existing customer than it is to find a new customer.  If your business allows for customers to make repeat purchases, like an online store or clothing company with new items every season, then the chances are better that your company will get value from a Facebook page.  However, if your customers only need to buy your product once, like a video game or a book, then you will always have to be finding new customers because your product doesn’t lend itself to repeat purchases.  That will make it harder for you to come out with a positive return on your Facebook investment if you are continually having to find new customers instead of simply re-selling old ones.

2. Do you have other contact information for your Facebook followers?  Depending on your company’s approach to Facebook, you may know that most of the people on your Facebook page got there because they were already following your company on its website, email list, or elsewhere.  If that’s the case, there shouldn’t be much negative consequence to closing your Facebook page, because you can still reach those customers another way.  However this situation is probably rare, so what can you do if you don’t have other ways to contact your existing Facebook fans?

Start by going to your page and looking at the cost for promoted posts.  Figure out how much money you’d wind up spending to reach your desired number of fans each month.  This will let you know how much money you can potentially save by moving people to another platform like Twitter, Tumblr, or an email list.

From there, come up with a budget for a contest, and an ad campaign to promote it to your Facebook following, that encourages people to switch to your new platform of choice.  This will allow you to justify the expense of the contest and the promotional campaign because you can show that after a certain amount of time, say six months, you will have saved enough money in Facebook expenses to pay for the contest.  And every month after that those savings will be contributing to higher profits for your company.

3. How are you measuring the value of your Facebook fans?  This is the most important question to ask yourself about whether or not you should keep your Facebook page.  Do you know the average revenue generated per fan?  Or how many new fans you need to acquire in order for one to make a purchase?  Unless you have some way of proving that having a Facebook page is making your company money, you’re running the risk of wasting a substantial amount of time and resources.  It’s time for you to start making sure your Facebook page is creating a positive return on investment.

For example, if you know that for every 10 new fans you acquire on average one makes a $20 purchase, then you can look at how much it costs in advertising and administrative costs in order to get 10 new fans.  It’s important to factor in the labor and admin costs because those are resources that could be doing something else potentially more effective at generating money for your business if they weren’t tied up running the Facebook page.

So, if it costs you less than $20 to acquire 10 new fans on Facebook, then it’s worth it to keep your page and pay money to grow your following.  However, even if you’ve determined that your page is generating positive ROI now, that doesn’t mean that it will continue to do so.  Especially if your business doesn’t allow for repeat customers, like the first question pointed out, make sure that you check in on your Facebook ROI regularly.

First, there’s no guarantee that Facebook won’t make changes in the future that will further reduce your ROI.  You may also find that as you sell more of your product it will become harder to sustain the same volume of sales.  You may reach a point where all of the people who are most likely to buy from you have already done so, and the only people left to target aren’t as interested.  This would cause your sales to drop and require you to look at a new strategy to address the changed marketplace.

The bottom line is if you’re going to have a Facebook page, make sure you’ve got a justification for it.  And “I’m doing it because all my competitors are doing it” doesn’t count.  Just because they like to waste money doesn’t mean you should.

By Alon Popilskis

Are you getting the results you want from your email marketing campaigns? Email marketing has been around for a while now, and there’s a reason it’s such a popular channel in most marketers’ toolboxes. Savvy interactions can deepen customer relationships, inspire new ones, nurture and convert leads, and strengthen brand awareness. By delivering compelling messages tailored to specific customer triggers, marketers can take leads from engagement to purchase.

That said, not every marketer is getting the maximum results possible from their email marketing initiatives.  In fact, some are completely missing the boat. To learn more about how to maximize your email marketing initiatives, be sure to download our new ebook, A Decade into Email Marketing: Where Are We Now?

The Evolution of Email Marketing

It’s true that we’ve come a long way from the early days of blast campaigns that usually hit the wrong customers, ended up in the spam filter, or simply created feelings of annoyance and intrusion. In fact, the time has never been better to be a marketer. Technologies like marketing automation allow companies to design polished messages that deliver the most relevant conversations to the right prospect at the perfect time. Lets face it, email has always been a cheap medium as well, with no printing and shipping costs to worry about, email helps mid-market and emerging businesses compete with the big leagues.  Consider the cost of executing a digital campaign these days vs. the postage driven campaigns of just a few decades ago and you can see how powerful email is not only in terms of engagement but also as a cost cutting measure.

These days we use email for all kinds of initiatives. Whether we want to reenergize fading leads, deepen engagement with existing customers or launch irresistible upsell and cross-sell offers, we’ve got the tools to tailor our messaging with unprecedented precision. And as mobile rises in popularity with countless users, leads are more connected to their email than ever before.

Creating a Seamless Cross-Channel Experience

So what’s the problem? The truth is that there are so many strategies and channels to consider that many marketers feel overwhelmed. Some are uncertain of which tactics they should be using; some are pursuing unproductive initiatives; some are jumping from strategy to strategy without sticking to one long enough to see results. Still others are applying one overarching plan across all channels, without considering the specific parameters for social and mobile campaigns or the role of smartphones and tablets. To create a seamless cross-channel user experience, email strategies must align with the appropriate platforms.

Authenticity Through Relevance

The rapid evolution of marketing technologies has left many marketers with a skill gap, and others completely in the dust. Even businesses that have invested in good marketing platforms often lack the training to fully understand how segmentation, testing and analytic tools can help them drive ROI and measure campaign performance. Another common issue: the failure to understand the necessity of tailored and engaging content. The days of predictable promotional emails are over, and marketers must create relevant emails that foster an authentic connection with customers. Not only can such relevance make the difference between a delete and a transaction, but techniques such as initiating transactional emails or driving readers to dynamic landing pages on marketing platforms can boost conversions, revenue and brand visibility.

So let me ask you again: are you getting the most you can out of your email marketing campaigns? Are you using the right strategies for the right channels? To help you decide – and learn some new tricks – we’ve put together a new ebook, A Decade into Email Marketing: Where are We Now?, which focuses on deft marketing strategies to help you maximize the potential of this rich marketing tool. We’ll share the 5 pathways to high-impact campaigns that attract, convert and close. Take a look and discover how you can design emails that turn leads into customers and engagement into sales.

Want to learn even more about email marketing? Be sure to pre-register for Marketo’s upcoming Definitive Guide to Engaging Email Marketing available on August 7th!
Author: Justin Gray

DealerNet Services
 

In the past, writing skills for B2B marketers weren't as important as being able to source lists and batch send a heavilyproduct-oriented email, hoping someone will open the email and maybe even read it!

But it's not so easy these days.

Your buyers are sick of interruption-style marketing tactics, so B2B marketers are switching to content marketing tactics in order to cut through the noise and engage successfully with the target audience.

Content marketing entails drawing buyers to you so they happily part with their details in exchange for information they actually value and want - and that rarely involves talking about your product or service.

So you have to develop your writing skills to be a successful B2B marketer in this day and age. Here are some of the different things you will need to be able to write:

1. Website Copy Because you're most familiar with the buyer personas that you're selling to, you will probably be given the task of writing copy for the entire website - and beyond. This is no easy feat.

Write with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in mind Although Google is asking for an emphasis on content and user experience, keywords are still important, because it's what your buyers are searching. You must know how to write for:

• On-site SEO. To make sure your website is easily found, you'll have to think of attractive metadata and meta descriptions. You'll also have to decide on phrases for headings, alt text, and internal links. Then there's the job of writing the actual copy.
• Off-site SEO. Besides guest blogs, off-site SEO is all about social media. These include everything from status updates to personal and company bios.

• Introduce yourself. Answer the question: Who are you? 
• State your offer. Answer the reason: Why are you emailing me?
• Reinforce your offer. Answer the question: Why should I care?
• Provide instructions. Answer the question: What should I do next?

• 4 Steps to Writing B2B Promos That Actually Work (MarketingProfs)
• 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing (CopyBlogger)
• Copywriting: How to improve headlines on landing pages and blog posts (MarketingSherpa)

The psychology of color as it relates to persuasion is one of the most interesting—and most controversial—aspects of marketing.

The reason: Most of today’s conversations on colors and persuasion consist of hunches, anecdotal evidence and advertisers blowing smoke about “colors and the mind.”

To alleviate this trend and give proper treatment to a truly fascinating element of human behavior, today we’re going to cover a selection of the most reliable research on color theory and persuasion.â¨

Misconceptions around the Psychology of Color

Why does color psychology invoke so much conversation … but is backed with so little factual data?

As research shows, it’s likely because elements such as personal preference, experiences, upbringing, cultural differences, context, etc., often muddy the effect individual colors have on us. So the idea that colors such as yellow or purple are able to invoke some sort of hyper-specific emotion is about as accurate as your standard Tarot card reading.

The conversation is only worsened by incredibly vapid visuals that sum up color psychology with awesome “facts” such as this one:â¨

Don’t fret, though. Now it’s time to take a look at some research-backed insights on how color plays a role in persuasion.â¨

The Importance of Colors in Brandingâ¨

First, let’s address branding, which is one of the most important issues relating to color perception and the area where many articles on this subject run into problems.

There have been numerous attempts to classify consumer responses to different individual colors:â¨

... but the truth of the matter is that color is too dependent on personal experiences to be universally translated to specific feelings.

But there are broader messaging patterns to be found in color perceptions. For instance, colors play a fairly substantial role in purchases and branding.

In an appropriately titled study called Impact of Color in Marketing, researchers found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone (depending on the product).â¨

And in regards to the role that color plays in branding, results from studies such as The Interactive Effects of Colors show that the relationship between brands and color hinges on the perceived appropriateness of the color being used for the particular brand (in other words, does the color "fit" what is being sold).â¨

The study Exciting Red and Competent Blue also confirms that purchasing intent is greatly affected by colors due to the impact they have on how a brand is perceived. This means that colors influence how consumers view the "personality" of the brand in question (after all, who would want to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle if they didn’t get the feeling that Harleys were rugged and cool?).â¨

Additional studies have revealed that our brains prefer recognizable brands, which makes color incredibly important when creating a brand identity. It has even been suggested in Color Research & Application that it is of paramount importance for new brands to specifically target logo colors that ensure differentiation from entrenched competitors (if the competition all uses blue, you'll stand out by using purple).

When it comes to picking the “right” color, research has found that predicting consumer reaction to color appropriateness in relation to the product is far more important than the individual color itself.⨠So, if Harley owners buy the product in order to feel rugged, you could assume that the pink + glitter edition wouldn't sell all that well.

Psychologist and Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker has conducted studies on this very topic via research on Dimensions of Brand Personality, and her studies have found five core dimensions that play a role in a brand’s personality:

(Brands can sometimes cross between two traits, but they are mostly dominated by one. High fashion clothing feels sophisticated, camping gear feels rugged.)

Additional research has shown that there is a real connection between the use of colors and customers’ perceptions of a brand’s personality.â¨

Certain colors DO broadly align with specific traits (e.g., brown with ruggedness, purple with sophistication, and red with excitement). But nearly every academic study on colors and branding will tell you that it’s far more important for your brand’s colors to support the personality you want to portray instead of trying to align with stereotypical color associations.â¨

Consider the inaccuracy of making broad statements such as “green means calm.” The context is missing; sometimes green is used to brand environmental issues such as Timberland’s G.R.E.E.N standard, but other times it’s meant to brand financial spaces such as Mint.com.

And while brown may be useful for a rugged appeal (think Saddleback Leather), when positioned in another context brown can be used to create a warm, inviting feeling (Thanksgiving) or to stir your appetite (every chocolate commercial you’ve ever seen).

Bottom line: I can’t offer you an easy, clear-cut set of guidelines for choosing your brand’s colors, but I can assure you that the context you’re working within is an absolutely essential consideration.

It’s the feeling, mood, and image that your brand creates that play a role in persuasion. Be sure to recognize that colors only come into play when they can be used to match a brand’s desired personality (i.e., the use of white to communicate Apple’s love of clean, simple design).

Without this context, choosing one color over another doesn't make much sense, and there is very little evidence to support that 'orange' will universally make people purchase a product more often than 'silver'.

Color Preferences by Gender

Perceived appropriateness may explain why the most popular car colors are white, black, silver and gray … but is there something else at work that explains why there aren’t very many purple power tools?â¨

One of the better studies on this topic is Joe Hallock’s Colour Assignments. Hallock’s data showcases some clear preferences in certain colors across gender.â¨

It’s important to note that one’s environment—and especially cultural perceptions—plays a strong role in dictating color appropriateness for gender, which in turn can influence individual choices. Consider, for instance, this coverage by Smithsonian magazine detailing how blue became the color for boys and pink was eventually deemed the color for girls (and how it used to be the reverse!).â¨

Here were Hallock’s findings for the most and least favorite colors of men and women:â¨

Men’s Favorite Colors

Women’s Favorite Colors

Men’s Least Favorite Colorsâ¨

Women’s Least Favorite Colors

The most notable points in these images is the supremacy of blue across both genders (it was the favorite color for both groups) and the disparity between groups on purple. Women list purple as a top-tier color, but no men list purple as a favorite color. (Perhaps this is why we have no purple power tools, a product largely associated with men?)

Additional research in studies on color perception and color preferences show that when it comes to shades, tints and hues men seem to prefer bold colors while women prefer softer colors. Also, men were more likely to select shades of colors as their favorites (colors with black added), whereas women were more receptive to tints of colors (colors with white added):

Keep this information in mind when choosing your brand’s primary color palette. Given the starkly different taste preferences shown, it pays to appeal more to men or women if they make up a larger percentage of your ideal buyers.â¨

Written by Gregory Ciotti

DealerNet Services

What sets your company apart from everyone else’s? It’s the brand – and creating a better business starts with this key factor. Without a really good one, nothing sets your enterprise apart from the next one, and this won’t have customers clamoring to do business with you. Therefore, take a hard look at this aspect of your company, and figure out where any changes need to be made. Your business’s brand is essentially your promise to your customer, according to Entrepreneur magazine, and it sets the tone for all future relations. It is what sets you apart, and it is a reflection on everyone who works for a company. With a poor one, even the best products and services could be ignored. When it comes to branding your business, be the industry standard. Let customers know exactly what they are dealing with and the quality of services they should expect.

It all starts with the logo
Not surprisingly, one of the first elements of a brand people see is the logo. That is why it is crucial to make it the best it can possibly be. The logo can make or break a company, and while it is often the first element seen, it can frequently be the last thing remembered. Think about all of the iconic logos - BMW, Coca-Cola, Nike – the list could go on for a long time, but the point is that they are all quite memorable in their simplicity. This is the ultimate goal for branding your business. Create the perfect logo so a customer can’t get it out of their head.

“Other people have to be able to speak for your brand,” said Jonah Berger, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “You love your company, you think your company is great, but if you’re not around, what are people going to be able to remember? And what are they going to tell others?”

Therefore, when starting to craft a brand identity, it is best to keep it simple. The iconic logos previously mentioned all had something in common – simplicity. That is one of the major reasons as to why each one stays in your head. They manage to convey a lot about a company while not being distracting or overly ambitious. For example, Apple started with a more complex version of the logo we all know today. If you remember, it used to be rainbow-colored, and the more intricate predecessor of the plain, black or grayscale version apparent on many tech items today. Berger added that the easier it is to look over a logo, the more desirable it becomes. Apple was smart to simplify - it was less difficult to see the apple and remember with less bells and whistles. Most of the iconic logos have fewer than three colors, and this is for good reason.

To make a company really stand out over a long period of time, the logo also needs to be flexible. What this means is that a company can’t get locked in to an idea. Something that works now might not work in five years, or 10 years, and so on. Perhaps it may not even work in a shorter amount of time, and it is up to management to be able to change quickly and not let affection or ego cloud good business strategy. For example, the Apple logo speaks perfectly to this. The rainbow-colored one was great when the company was a fraction of the global giant it is today, but things change, and the bright, multi-faceted fruit doesn’t convey the same connotations that its monotone counterpart does now.

All of these elements speak to memorability. Don’t make it difficult for a customer to remember your business. Help them along, and at the same time try to convey as much as possible about what the company does. Take a simple concept and give it a small slice of spice, like when Apple decided to take a bite out of its logo.

A great brand should “help them remember that you exist and what you stand for,” added Berger - without a little variety, “it might be easier to process, but [you'd] be less likely to remember, because it looks exactly like a million things you’ve seen before.”

The best way to know if the methods you use for branding your business are working it to try them. Put a new logo out there and see what people think.

Keep your brand short, sweet, and adaptable
The concepts many businesses use for marketing change often. If your company can’t change right along with them, odds are it won’t succeed. According to Inc. magazine, the old themes of business marketing involved creating a product that has broad appeal, reaching an audience as large as possible and creating a recognizable brand name that can span multiple products. While elements of these hold true in some fashion, the marketing world is evolving, and your company should too.

Due to the growing technologies available today, it requires a different touch to brand well. The Internet and media have divided consumers into smaller categories, and it has also shortened attention spans and has turned many people into the “what have you done for me lately?” types. Therefore, the strategies you use need to be customized to appeal to very specific consumers.

Therefore, a great business brand should target a specific type of person - one that is most likely to buy your product. This brand should attempt to gain support among these consumers, which will help bring new business in. In addition, customer feedback will help define your brand in the future, setting the tone for future marketing strategies. Listen to everyone - social media can be a great way to get instant opinions.

New strategies are more narrow than the older ones, and a business really has to know who its clientele is. The best method for branding your business is to let your consumers dictate the direction. What makes your brand memorable, and what branding strategies do you want to implement in the future?
by Amy Atwood

DealeNet Services

 

Most C-level Executives, CMO included, view “Social” as media—but they don’t know how to interact with consumers there in a meaningful way. They want to buy CPMs or Likes—but don’t know what to do with them afterward.

CMO’s also make the mistake of assuming that the social audience has the same pain and passion points as their face-to-face or store audience. Most often that is not the case.

In order to get the real value out of Social, you must connect emotionally to the people who are there and find out what they’re looking for. CMOs are used to ads and campaigns, so that’s the place they gravitate, but even Facebook ads are only media buys. Ads are good for building initial likes, but they really are targeted to demographics just like any other ad.

Your mission is to go beyond that initial like and really get people excited about your brand, engage with you, buy from you, become a social advocate and sell for you. To do that you need to get into the heads of your social buyers.

So assign that as a singular goal to appropriate personnel on your team. Make it their mission to follow or friend your followers (not only on Facebook and Twitter, but everywhere online) and listen to their conversations. Their sole mission should be to pay attention to your social consumers. Find out what they like to talk about, the other brands they like, what their problems are–what makes them tick. That’s not a one-and-done task either… it’s ongoing.

Have you ever read or heard a truly engaging story? Have you tuned into some television show you couldn't stop watching? What makes the roller coaster ride of a story so thrilling to us?

Well, every great story begins with a prologue that sets the stage and the characters into motion. In order for us to truly be sucked in, the narrator must build a backstory, sometimes with exposition, that connects the audience emotionally to the characters and establishes the themes. Each additional word then slowly thickens the plot and revs the action up until it peaks at some climax; on the way down, the reader or listener fully experiences every jarring twist and red herring the storyline has to offer. Unfortunately, some tales crash and burn, perhaps by leaving the audience in a suspended state of disbelief. But the stories that manage to captivate our attention and make it past the lake of "unresolved subplots" to their final destinations can be a rewarding and entertaining ride!
 
What's your all-time favorite story? Personally, I'd have to go with the Princess Bride How can you go wrong with comedy and adventure, mystical forests, jolly giants, and shrieking eels, not to mention badly written true love?
 
comic via incidentalcomics